Donald Trump: ‘National emergency’ lets military build border wall

President Trump said Sunday that he is considering declaring border security a national emergency and triggering presidential powers that would allow him to assign the military to build his border wall, and he promised a decision based on how shutdown negotiations go.

Some Democrats acknowledged federal law does give Mr. Trump emergency powers, though they signaled they and their allies would try to tie up any such decision in lengthy court battles, in what could be a redux of the travel ban cases.

Mr. Trump raised the possibility at a press conference Friday and repeated it to reporters Sunday afternoon as he returned from Camp David after overseeing a day of shutdown negotiations.

“We’re looking at a national emergency because we have a national emergency,” he said.

The Pentagon last month said it has studied the issue and concluded it does have legal authority to build border fencing if it is deemed part of a counterdrug operation or part of a national emergency.

Defense officials at the time said while the legal issues had been studied, they did not have specific plans to follow through.

Rep. Adam Smith, Washington Democrat and the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said presidents have indeed used emergency construction powers in the past — though he told ABC’s “This Week” program that “primarily it’s been done to build facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

He and Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said attempts to use the powers in the U.S. will invite lawsuits over whether there is, in fact, a national emergency.

“He will face challenge, I’m sure, if he oversteps what the law requires when it comes to his responsibilities as commander in chief,” Mr. Durbin told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Those lawsuits could put the courts in the thorny position of refereeing between Mr. Trump’s claims of illegal immigrants, drugs, criminals and terrorists pouring across the southwestern border, and Democrats’ insistence that the borders are secure enough.

“We have a crisis at the border of drugs, of human beings being trafficked all over the world … and criminals and gang members coming through,” the president told reporters Sunday.

Talk about using emergency powers ramped up in the weeks before the shutdown when it appeared the president would sign a stopgap spending bill to keep the government open and would try to find other ways to erect his wall without going to Congress.

But Mr. Trump, under pressure from conservatives eager for a shutdown fight, reversed course and announced that he would reject the spending bill and put the focus back on negotiations.

With the shutdown now in its third week and the negotiations stalemated, the president appears to have renewed his interest — though it’s not clear whether he is serious or whether he views it as a negotiating tactic to try to force action on his marquee 2016 promise.

Congressional Democrats said Mr. Trump would be abusing his powers.

Mr. Smith said the president would be shortchanging the military if he asked it to use its manpower and money to build fencing instead of focusing on missions overseas.

Thousands of troops are already deployed to the border to assist in hardening facilities and providing logistics support — which also irks Democrats.

“Defense spending is for national defense, not the Trump campaign’s political wish list,” said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He vowed to rally bipartisan opposition should the president pursue the emergency strategy, and he said Mr. Trump had a Republican-led Congress for two years and should have acted then.

Mr. Trump did win more than $1 billion to build a levee wall and border fencing in the 2018 spending bills. That works out to 84 miles of new and replacement fencing, in addition to dozens of miles funded by the 2017 Homeland Security spending bill.

The fencing being built is based on designs the Border Patrol has been using for years — not the concrete models Mr. Trump envisioned.

Border Patrol agents say the concrete designs proved unfeasible, and agents prefer the steel bollard fencing that has become standard under the Secure Fence Act of 2006.

Mr. Smith voted for that 2006 bill, which mandated 700 miles of two-tier fencing. Mr. Reed voted against it.

On Sunday, Mr. Smith told ABC’s “This Week” program that “the wall is not in itself a bad idea; it’s just, it’s been done.”

He said Mr. Trump hasn’t made the case that new parts of the border need to be fenced beyond the 354 miles that currently have fencing. Another 300 miles have vehicle barriers, but those cannot stop foot traffic.

23 Comments

Declare a National Emergency and at the same time limited Martial Law all along the Southern Border… martial law will end any CIVIL LAW SUITE to stop the President from defending the National Security of our Nation.

Any Civil Law suit would loose standing under Martial Law and if not it would set a precedent that would hand tie future Presidents during other nation emergencies… where, our nation is under direct military attack. Can one imagine a law suite to stop a response to a conventional or nuclear attack? I am sure the progressives and leftist can.

I wouldn’t be opposed to that, but I think he should give the shutdown a bit more time to sour mainstream Americans on the anti-Trump/anti-America democrats now occupying the House.

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chrose

1:03 pm January 7, 2019 at 1:03 pm

capt, most of us real Americans want that shutdown to last for months because it will find many Obama holdovers leaving for a job and DC is not cheap and they hate us and Trump, so good riddance to truly bad rubbish! So much good can come from months of shutdown, so email him and tell him that we need it!

chrose, I think the conniving Commucrats are in a PANIC, because, in spite of their weeping and wailing about how this government shut-down will end the world as we know it, it’s becoming clear that the average American DOES NOT CARE, and would be OK with that shutdown dragging on for MONTHS. Moreover, they are not turning on Pres. Trump as the Commucrats had hoped would happen when they immediately started blaming Pres. Trump for their OWN obstructionism, which is what LED to this “shutdown showdown” in the FIRST place. They blatantly REFUSED to compromise on ANYTHING, demanding, as usual, that THEIR way was the ONLY acceptable way, and virtually DARING Pres. Trump to do anything about it. Well, he HAS, and now they’re STUCK with it, and I hope they CHOKE ON IT.

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ltuser

4:21 pm January 7, 2019 at 4:21 pm

I’m not opposed to it either. WHICH IS WHY I’ve been saying Take the entire border, and make it a new military base. 2 miles wide! Live fire testing sites all over the place.

usar4me, right on and let’s email him again to do it NOW while the democrats, our employees, have literally walked away and that is a strike and you know as we all know, you strike and you are fired. They are not needed in either of the 2 parties in 1 except for a very few. We want the border, all hundred miles of it protect/closed down and the military build things fast and well done, so go for it. whitehouse.gov/contact# because the more we email him, the more he can do it during the shutdown, which we also want to last for several months and they can’t do a damn thing about it! A hard lesson must be learned by both parties that this is our country and we the Government and they are merely hired creeps and we have had it with them.

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ltuser

4:21 pm January 7, 2019 at 4:21 pm

And for gawd sake. CEASE PAYING every congress critter while its shut down. MAKE THEM FEEL the same pain.

Let me get this right. Trump’s decision on whether to declare a state of emergency depends on how he gets his way in “negotiations”? In other words, there’s no emergency if he gets the funding and (gulp) it takes 5 yrs. to build his stupid wall, so between now and 5 yrs. from now, there’s no “emergency”? Dems, HOLD THE LINE! Another faux bit of hysteria is about to visit the American taxpayer (if Trump WANTS the wall, let him PAY for it….or use his superior negotiating skills he so brags about to get the Mexicans to pay for it).

bigunit47, the cost of illegal aliens coming here and signing up for every welfare program they can find is $113 BILLION a year. The cost of the wall would be a BARGAIN, in comparison. And this is not even CONSIDERING the terrorists and criminals that are hiding among the “poor little immigrants” and entering our country. Therefore, it damned well IS a national security issue that, because of the globalist/Commucrat recruited, organized and FUNDED caravans that are currently ASSAULTING our border has morphed into–guess what–a NATIONAL EMERGENCY. Besides, how come it’s OK for the conniving COMMUCRATS to play politics with our national security and everything ELSE, but when somebody uses their OWN tactics against them, suddenly it’s a sin? You liberals make me sick, not to mention TIRED with your tortured “logic.”

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ltuser

1:07 am January 8, 2019 at 1:07 am

Heck, just look at schooling ON its own.. According to FAIRUS.org, it costs 1.6 Billion a year on its own to educate the kids of illegal aliens, AND the kids that themselves are illegal aliens.
So if it cost 32 billion to build the entire wall (Spitballing here), that means over 20 years we’d recoup the cost of educating the kids.

Heck, the federal welfare debt illegal invaders cost is, on its own is 5.8 billion, PER YEAR.
So that means ONE YEAR OF NO WELFARE Of any sort for illegals, would pay for what trump wants.

[The approximately $46 billion in federal expenditures attributable to illegal aliens is staggering. Assuming an illegal alien population of approximately 12.5 million illegal aliens and 4.2 million U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, that amounts to roughly $2,746 per illegal alien, per year. For the sake of comparison, the average American college student receives only $4,800 in federal student loans each year.]

I wholeheartedly agree! The MASS invasions being DELIBERATELY staged by Globalists recruiting, organizing and FUNDING huge caravans of invaders to assault our border are a globalist ploy to do to the United States with Central Americans, Mexicans, and OTHER invaders from the south, what they have ALREADY done to Europe with Muslims IS a “national emergency,” and declaring it so gives Pres. Trump considerably MORE latitude and yet ANOTHER weapon to combat the pointless and DESTRUCTIVE obstructionism of the conniving COMMUCRATS in Congress.

By declaring the “border crisis” a “national emergency,” Pres. Trump could simply do an end run around the conniving COMMUCRATS, and build the freaking wall–which a MAJORITY of Americans in BOTH parties want–using funding already allocated for the military to do it, while the conniving COMMIES just sit there sputtering in fake outrage with their STUPID mouths hanging open.

Lately I noticed the Libs trying to drive a new wedge between Trump and his base. They’re whining that he is looking at a steel slat wall instead of a concrete wall.

Border agents insist a steel slat wall does a better job of securing the border, and they ought to know. I too am partial to the solid concrete approach but it all comes down to what does the BEST job of securing the border?

I’m wondering if a hybrid approach might not be better. Make a solid concrete footing with an initial wall 4 feet high. That would be plenty high for stopping vehicles trying to ram the wall. Then a good 15-20 feet back, install the steel slats. Leave plenty of room on our side to allow for patrol vehicles.

Firsr off, Tlaib is a total puke! Trump can have the combat engineers build a wall like the Border Patrol advises. They can have it done before the commucrats can devise a plan to thwart it. Martial law on the border will keep the judge shoppers from getting an injunction.

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